Following Edward Snowden's revelations that the U.S. is spying on people and governments across the world, European Union countries have floated proposals to build a Europe-centric communications system designed to bypass NSA surveillance.

But on Friday, the top U.S. trade negotiating body charged that such a move would violate international trade law.

"Recent proposals from countries within the European Union to create a Europe-only electronic network (dubbed a 'Schengen cloud' by advocates) or to create national-only electronic networks could potentially lead to effective exclusion or discrimination against foreign service suppliers that are directly offering network services, or dependent on them," states a report released Friday by the office of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

The USTR takes aim at the German state-backed Deutsche Telekom for advocating laws to stop European electronics data from being routed outside the EU in a bid to protect privacy.

The report slams this approach as "draconian" and charges that it "appears to be a means of providing protectionist advantage to EU-based ICT suppliers."

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Further

In further proof U.S. cops are out of control - cue LAPD killing a homeless man - comes Cleveland's WTF response to a lawsuit by the family of Tamir Rice, shot dead in a park for playing with a toy gun. His death, says the city, was "directly and proximately caused by (his) failure to exercise due care to avoid injury.” To wit: He's to blame for his own murder because he didn't understand he was in the wrong body. The kind that gets shot - the black kind.